Gifted Aviators go robotic

They had the cool shades and their monotonic robot voices down pat. The music was playing and the robots were hopping, lurching, drawing and chasing each other. After months of dedicated work, the kids in Laura Pink’s gifted science program at Antioch Elementary School were ready to sparkle for their peers from other classes.

Make that SPARK-le. As in, Student Pursuit Around Knowledge, the catchy new name for the Okaloosa County School District’s only program combining aeronautics and robotics.

“The kids are really proud of their new name,” Pink said. “We’re sparklers now!”

As for the sunglasses, “When you get glasses on, you can do anything,” Pink said, adjusting her own pair of ornate silver-framed specs.

Since the beginning of the school year, her fourth and fifth grade students have been studying robotics in conjunction with lessons in aviation taught by Leo Murphy, the Embry-Riddle CHOICE aviation program’s instructor at Choctawhatchee High School.

“We’re the only elementary school up here in a CHOICE program,” Pink said.

Around the room there were robots nervously hopping around a tray, rowing a Viking longboat, signing autographs, disco dancing, booting soccer balls, battling each other, and whizzing around following a programmed route.

While most of the robots required power sources, either from batteries or bright lights that activated solar cells, one still worked the old fashioned way. Zachary Fox demonstrated a guitar-playing robot that required a human hand to turn the crank at its base before it would strum its wooden guitar

“They built this stuff,” Pink said proudly, suddenly spinning around as the cry “Runaway robot!” went up and everyone carefully watched where they put their feet until the rogue ‘bot was captured and returned to its place.

The variety of actions the students’ robots performed and the complexity of their construction were amazing. When Gabriella Grois and Hannah Kelsey banged on the table or clapped their hands, a foot-tall wooden dinosaur lurched forward. A clap of Taylor Critcher’s hands and her “Moonwalker” started wobbling its way across the table—until it toppled over.

“That thing needs to be repaired,” intoned Daniel Bertling in his best robot voice.

After first building the machine, on one of the classroom computers, Daniel had programmed the robot that now whizzed around and around in front of him.

“This is entirely made of Legos,” Daniel’s robot voice informed anyone who’d stop to watch.

“This is fun!” said Geoffrey Prestridge as he activated one of the Viking longboats robotic oarsmen under a nearby work light. “Whew! It’s hot!” he then exclaimed, yanking his arm out from under the lamp.

Even the most brilliant robotic engineers can get singed if they’re not careful, Geoffrey learned.

Advice from young robotic engineers

Laura Pink’s gifted science students learned that engineering robots takes a lot of patience and determination. Here are some words of advice they offered anyone who wants to try robotics:

“Robots never work right the first time. You can learn from your mistakes. There are NEVER enough batteries.” – Geoffrey Prestridge

“You have to be very careful because you could break or damage a piece.” – Everett Schwieg

“If you don’t try, you will not succeed.” – Zachary Fox

“Some robots are meant to be made by one person only. Trust me! It gets hard when there are four different people having to collaborate over what to do.” – Daniel Bertling

“Never use one screw to [sic] many times. It will get stripped and WILL NOT COME OUT!” – Kelsi Mensen

“They work better the second time you run them than the first time.” – Emma Devore

“Never give up on things that may challenge you.” – Ailee Kirkpatrick

Click here for a photo gallery of Antioch Elementary School’s SPARK students’ robotics exhibition. See video of the robots on our Web site homepage.